I can credit a lot of my decision to become a teacher to my experience at Pilgrim High School. Pilgrim is located in Warwick, the city I had moved to in the fifth grade. As the summer of 2010 was quickly winding down, I became very nervous about beginning my first chapter of high school. I worried about the basic things: will I get lost? Will I know people in my classes? Will the work be too hard? My freshman and sophomore years of high school were pretty average. I got good grades, met a lot of new people, and spent a year on the outdoor track team. Other than that, I wasn’t very involved in extracurricular activities and hadn’t made any lasting connections with other students or teachers. All of that quickly changed during my junior year. Looking back over the four years, my junior year of high school was certainly my favorite. Many things happened that influenced my choice of becoming a teacher. At the beginning of the school year, I started to become more involved in a variety of clubs. First, I joined the school’s Student Leadership Program. Open to juniors and seniors, this program allows upperclassmen to help freshman transition from junior high to high school. Student leaders show freshmen around at orientation, and regularly visit them during advisory the first few weeks to make sure they are adjusting okay. Next, I joined my school’s Travel Club, led by an amazing teacher. I traveled to many places with this club over the next two years, including local restaurants, New York City, and a trip to Fenway Park for a Red Sox game. Finally, I joined my favorite club my junior year, which was the Class of 2014 Executive Committee. Along with our group’s two advisors and many of my friends who joined, we helped plan class events such as prom, fundraisers and senior banquet. Helping put together events that my class got to enjoy gave me a sense of both accomplishment and community. These clubs taught me what it’s like to be a part of something bigger than myself, and inspired my want to travel and learn outside of the classroom. In addition to getting involved in a number of activities, I also had one particular teacher who left a lasting impression on me. During my junior year, I took an honors Western Civilization class. This history course was taught by a teacher named Mr. X. I had never been in one of his classes before, but he was well known by many other kids for his passion for his job and dedication to the students. Mr. X extended his teaching duties far beyond the classroom. He is the teacher who organizes all of the Travel Club’s national and international trips during both the school year and summer break. I admire his view that students should extend their knowledge and learning to other parts of the world outside of the classroom. At the beginning of the course, I found myself challenged like never before. I could tell Mr. X had high expectations for us, and I didn’t want to let him or myself down. So what makes this one teacher so special? The answer is that he truly cared. Not only did he just care about us succeeding in the course, but he cared about us as people. He was able to relate to us and communicate with us on a level that many other teachers failed to do. I was inspired by his passion and hard work, as well as his ability to connect with the students. He’s one of those teachers who will remember your name even after you’ve left his class. I even teared up a little bit on the last day of my senior year, grateful for all the knowledge and values he had taught and instilled in me. Today, when I think of what kind of teacher I want to be, I think of Mr. X. I may not have ended up here today if I hadn’t been placed in his Western Civ honors class three years ago. My senior year had a hard act to follow after my incredible junior year. I had joined a number of clubs and had just experienced my junior prom. While senior year didn’t live up to my expectations with the stresses of college applications and senior project, it did have some highlights. Senior project, which is a graduation requirement for all students in Warwick Public High Schools, is an opportunity for students to explore a career field they may be interested in. I chose to do my field work at the local preschool my mom teaches at, and enlisted one of her fellow teachers as my mentor. I focused my project on the study of multiple learning styles in young children, and got the chance to observe and work in a kindergarten classroom over the course of many weeks. While I’m grateful for the experience, this helped me realize that early childhood education isn’t for me and I’d prefer to teach at a high school level. I also had a great English teacher during my senior year named Mrs. Parente. She was another teacher that truly cared about the success and well-being of her students. She was one of those exceptional teachers who could make any course material interesting. Some of the books we read and discussed in her class remain my favorite books to this day. I’ve always considered English as my favorite and strongest subject, but her World Literature class is what really sparked my passion and interest in becoming an English teacher. My fondest memory of my senior year, however, is my last day of school as a Pilgrim Patriot. Halfway through the day, the 220 or so members of the senior class gathered into the school gym to countdown our last minutes together as high school students. The clock on the scoreboard began counting down from ten, and an eruption of cheers was heard as the buzzer hit 0. Looking around the gym from the top of the bleachers, I saw lifelong friends embraced in hugs, giving high fives and tears streaming down faces. It was all over. Homecoming, prom, SATs, senior project, everything seemed to blur together as I walked out of the doors of Pilgrim High School for the last time as a student. Maybe someday, I thought, I’ll walk back into these doors as a teacher. My reaction to the question, “Do you miss high school?” is kind of funny. I always say I have a love hate relationship with high school. I’m not going to lie, I hated a lot of it: the waking up early, the drama, the long nights of studying. I hated it up until the buzzer hit 0. That very second is when I truly came to understand our school motto: “once a Patriot, always a Patriot”.
Looking back over the four years, my junior year of high school was certainly my favorite. Many things happened that influenced my choice of becoming a teacher. At the beginning of the school year, I started to become more involved in a variety of clubs. First, I joined the school’s Student Leadership Program. Open to juniors and seniors, this program allows upperclassmen to help freshman transition from junior high to high school. Student leaders show freshmen around at orientation, and regularly visit them during advisory the first few weeks to make sure they are adjusting okay. Next, I joined my school’s Travel Club, led by an amazing teacher. I traveled to many places with this club over the next two years, including local restaurants, New York City, and a trip to Fenway Park for a Red Sox game. Finally, I joined my favorite club my junior year, which was the Class of 2014 Executive Committee. Along with our group’s two advisors and many of my friends who joined, we helped plan class events such as prom, fundraisers and senior banquet. Helping put together events that my class got to enjoy gave me a sense of both accomplishment and community. These clubs taught me what it’s like to be a part of something bigger than myself, and inspired my want to travel and learn outside of the classroom. In addition to getting involved in a number of activities, I also had one particular teacher who left a lasting impression on me.
During my junior year, I took an honors Western Civilization class. This history course was taught by a teacher named Mr. X. I had never been in one of his classes before, but he was well known by many other kids for his passion for his job and dedication to the students. Mr. X extended his teaching duties far beyond the classroom. He is the teacher who organizes all of the Travel Club’s national and international trips during both the school year and summer break. I admire his view that students should extend their knowledge and learning to other parts of the world outside of the classroom. At the beginning of the course, I found myself challenged like never before. I could tell Mr. X had high expectations for us, and I didn’t want to let him or myself down. So what makes this one teacher so special? The answer is that he truly cared. Not only did he just care about us succeeding in the course, but he cared about us as people. He was able to relate to us and communicate with us on a level that many other teachers failed to do. I was inspired by his passion and hard work, as well as his ability to connect with the students. He’s one of those teachers who will remember your name even after you’ve left his class. I even teared up a little bit on the last day of my senior year, grateful for all the knowledge and values he had taught and instilled in me. Today, when I think of what kind of teacher I want to be, I think of Mr. X. I may not have ended up here today if I hadn’t been placed in his Western Civ honors class three years ago.
My senior year had a hard act to follow after my incredible junior year. I had joined a number of clubs and had just experienced my junior prom. While senior year didn’t live up to my expectations with the stresses of college applications and senior project, it did have some highlights. Senior project, which is a graduation requirement for all students in Warwick Public High Schools, is an opportunity for students to explore a career field they may be interested in. I chose to do my field work at the local preschool my mom teaches at, and enlisted one of her fellow teachers as my mentor. I focused my project on the study of multiple learning styles in young children, and got the chance to observe and work in a kindergarten classroom over the course of many weeks. While I’m grateful for the experience, this helped me realize that early childhood education isn’t for me and I’d prefer to teach at a high school level. I also had a great English teacher during my senior year named Mrs. Parente. She was another teacher that truly cared about the success and well-being of her students. She was one of those exceptional teachers who could make any course material interesting. Some of the books we read and discussed in her class remain my favorite books to this day. I’ve always considered English as my favorite and strongest subject, but her World Literature class is what really sparked my passion and interest in becoming an English teacher. My fondest memory of my senior year, however, is my last day of school as a Pilgrim Patriot. Halfway through the day, the 220 or so members of the senior class gathered into the school gym to countdown our last minutes together as high school students. The clock on the scoreboard began counting down from ten, and an eruption of cheers was heard as the buzzer hit 0. Looking around the gym from the top of the bleachers, I saw lifelong friends embraced in hugs, giving high fives and tears streaming down faces. It was all over. Homecoming, prom, SATs, senior project, everything seemed to blur together as I walked out of the doors of Pilgrim High School for the last time as a student. Maybe someday, I thought, I’ll walk back into these doors as a teacher.
My reaction to the question, “Do you miss high school?” is kind of funny. I always say I have a love hate relationship with high school. I’m not going to lie, I hated a lot of it: the waking up early, the drama, the long nights of studying. I hated it up until the buzzer hit 0. That very second is when I truly came to understand our school motto: “once a Patriot, always a Patriot”.